


Rex, Duke Consort of Mandalore

by Gabriel4Sam



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Post-Order 66, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Satine Kryze Lives, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-07-24 19:08:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16181342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel4Sam/pseuds/Gabriel4Sam
Summary: Order 66 breaks the galaxy and everything Rex ever knew. Desperate, grieving Cody, Obi-Wan, his General, his brothers lost because of the chip, he takes Ahsoka and runs to the only place with a chance of standing against the Empire: Mandalore.Mandalore and its Duchesse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wrennette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/gifts).
  * Inspired by [good night 'til it be morrow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14205063) by [wrennette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette). 



> Wrennette has a beautiful, wonderful serie of fics that I really recommand and which inspired me this little story.   
> You should read her work, because it's brillant, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes hot, and always well thought and well written!

The Republic burned.

The Republic burned and Rex and Ahsoka ran from their men, who had gone in a few seconds from searching for Maul with them in the Outer Rim to trying to murder the former Padawan.

The Republic was no more.

The Jedi were no more.

Desperate, feeling himself responsible for the young Tortuga, even if she insisted it was the other way, Rex only thought of one way to turn.

Mandalore.

Mandalore….Why choose Mandalore?

Well, it was one of the only worlds he had visited that wasn't somehow on fire at the time. It was backed up by all the Neutral party subsisting. It was strong, it was very much not the type to open the door to a tyrant from another world.

And more important, it was the only world where he knew personally the leader.

As the long way to the planet passed, Rex asked himself numerous times if he was right. Would Satine even remember him? It had been almost one year ago and so much had come to pass in that time.

In his memory, she was a moment of pleasure, a harbour. Of course, there had been other pleasures. Since the moment Cody and Obi-Wan had become an item, he had been invited in their bunk regularly, and there had been other experiences. But that night, that single perfect night, Satine, Cody, Obi-Wan and him, was a clear memory, a warm coal against the shadows of war.

Perhaps it had been different for her. Perhaps Cody and he had just been a kinky game between Obi-Wan and herself, a naughty night with sex toys...

No, he didn't really believe it. He knew that what Cody and Obi-Wan had, that had been real, had been love.

That's why the idea that one of the two had probably killed the other hurt so deep. He had tried to com them once, before Ahsoka and he had to throw away their comms and there had been no answer. If Cody had killed Obi-Wan, his eyes empty, with that damn sentence on his lips like the brothers who had tried to kill Ahsoka.... good soldiers follow orders. What did that even mean?

Or if Obi-Wan had killed Cody in self-defence?

The Commander had always been just one step behind the Jedi, guarding his back, after all. And all over the galaxy, vode had killed the Jedi that had their back to them. Next to him, Ahsoka was sleeping, exhaustion having finally beaten her, after days where she had been almost delirious, Seeing and Feeling things Rex couldn’t guard her off.

He touched carefully the bandage on her shoulder. Blood stained it, but it was dry. He examined the stain. No, it didn’t seem it had started to bleed again. The memory came back, the noise his brother’s had made when Rex had put a blaster charge in his skull, to save Ashoka’s life.

He had been a shiny, without a proper name yet.

With a sigh, Rex put his head against the shuttle wall and regretted to have no religion. Now would have been a good time to pray. How did people find religion? Did they just pick one they liked? If so, he would choose one where the world make kriffin sense and the thrice damned Sith burned in the afterlife, and where brothers found each other again. And if that particular religion didn’t exist, he was half ready to create one!

They arrived on Mandalore in the middle of the night.

It was....ok, it was an administrative mess. People can't exactly arrive in orbit in a stolen shuttle and ask to speak with the planetary leader. But Rex spoke to someone who spoke to someone who spoke to someone and two hours after they were escorted by guards armed to the teeth to the palace.

“Aren't you pacifist now?” Rex asked, nearing the end of his patience, and eying the blaster of the leader of their escort, a petite woman who had not deigned to offer a name or to take his helmet down to salute them.

“We are no easy prey,” the woman answered and even with the helmet Rex could hear the teeth in her grin, an impressive trick.

He didn’t have to fear Satine’s reaction. She was as he remembered, she was more even, bigger than life, strong, decisive. That woman had fought all her life to make the galaxy a better place, her life a long line of tasks, each as momentous as possible, from the bettering of Mandalore to the Council of Neutral systems. She had made horrible mistakes, she had taken the wrong roads sometimes, but her heart always had been in the right place. Satine had never despaired, never renounced and she wouldn’t now, at the darkest hour. She bore that new mantle with her usual grace.

Mandalore opened its arms to all people fleeing from the Empire.

Mandalore opened its arms to the surviving Jedi.

Mandalore opened its arms to the vode with disfunctionning chips.

The clones trickled down slowly, grim-faced, and placed themselves under Rex’s command. Every day, the captain consulted the list of new arrivals. Cody and Obi-Wan were never on it.

The Jedi were even fewer. After a time, Ahsoka started to bunk with them. She was the only one of them who turned her back on the vode. Even if it hurt, Rex understood.

On the holonet for a few days, the images had been easy to find. Troopers suddenly turning against their Jedi, shooting them in the back. The desperate few parades the Jedi had the time to do, so surprised a first blaster shoot easily slipped past. And then so many others, even when the Jedi were down, the body twitching with it.

After a few days, the images disappeared. Someone smarter in the new Empire command had probably understood video of Jedi gunned down by thirty time their number, in the back, weren’t such good propaganda.

Satine offered two places on her Council, one for Rex, representing the vode deserting and running to Mandalore, and one for Master Knol Ven'nari, a Bothan female Jedi Master the few surviving Jedi had elected as their leader.

One day, a shiny who had been on the Negotiator manning communications, arrived in a stolen fighter. He had heard Rex’s message, relayed by Mandalore on every channel. He came with only his armour on his back and a tale of another Jedi, gunned down by his troops.

“I don’t think General Kenobi had the time to understand,” he said, as nicely as he could, when he saw the expression of Rex. Master Knol Ven'nari, seated next to Rex, growled low, what Rex had quickly learned was an expression of mourning in Bothan.

“Commander Cody made them use a very big calibre. No time to suffer with such a wound. And then the fall from the cliff… It went very quick.”

“And Cod- Commander Cody?”

“He was called to the Imperial Center. Apparently, Vader wanted him to lead his personal legion. Vader’s fist. They…hem, they were your men, sir. The 501th. But his transport was caught in one of the last pocket of resistance. I mean, one of the last, apart Mandalore. The transport exploded.”

Rex told it to Satine and Ahsoka himself. Satine thanked him very politely, and then asked him to leave. Ahsoka wailed in his arms for hours and he finally let himself cry too.

That night, he dreamed of them. They were in bed, the three of them, Obi-Wan between Cody and Rex, smiling, laughing. Rex was covering Obi-Wan’s bellies with hundreds of kisses. Then the laugh stopped and when Rex straightened up to look at him, there was blood everywhere, from Obi-Wan’s throat to Cody’s hands.

Every day, new refugees arrived.

“The Empire will come,” Bo-Katan whispered to her sister, when they were watching another long column exiting a ship and Satine nodded, her soul weighted by all her dead dreams.

“Oh, I know. The Empire will not let anything free. And offering refuge to those fleeing it will only put us higher on the list of targets.”

“This could be the end of Mandalore,” Bo-Katan remarked, as they observed Korkie working with Ahsoka and two young Mandalorians, handing out cups of warm soup. The first stopping place of the refuge were the medics, Mandalore really didn’t need some strange of outbreaks of little known virus right now, but nobody said they had to do it with empty bellies.

Satine took her sister gauntleted hand in her bare one.

“Then, I’m happy you’re here with me. If Mandalore must burn against the Empire, we’ll give it an end worthy of songs.”

Bo-Katan gripped her hand in return.

Mandalore was pacifist, officially, but Mandalore remembered the old ways. It didn’t need long to arm the planet to the teeth, probably less than would have made Satine comfortable. Soon, Mandalore was ready for a siege.

“It’s like even children had cache of weapons,” Satine remarked to Rex. They had listened all morning to her closest advisors preparing for what would probably be the first wave of the Empire attack and then she had asked Rex for her arm and took him for a stroll in the palace whose purpose he couldn’t understand.

“Your Highn-“he stopped himself. Pacifism had been her dreams and now she was probably the only Mandalorian not wearing plastoid. He didn’t know what words to offer.

She snorted.

“You should call me Satine. It would be strange not to, with our past,” She said and it was the first time they acknowledged what had happened, half an eternity ago. That one, perfect night, the four of them on the Coronet.

“If we are using our first name, can I convince you to wear armour? That would really make everyone in your immediate entourage happy.”

“No.”

“Pretty sure your sister would even smile.”

“She hasn’t in ten years.”

“Best reason to help her, then.”

“Still no.”

She touched his hand and he closed his mouth, already open for an answer.

“I didn’t ask you for a walk together for a discussion about my security. The stars known I have enough of that with Korkie and my sister. I have a mission for you. It will be a difficult one. That chip you told us about in your debrief….”

“Yes?”

“The medics need one of your brother. Alive, with the chip working.”

“To dechip him?”

She grimaced.

“Not like you think. The Empire is too big. We’ll lose. Nobody is saying it, but the minute they have finished to put out fire left and right, the full might of the GAR, ex-GAR I should say, will fall on Mandalore. It’s only a question of time. We’re strong, and armed, but we’re also the only one in the Neutral Systems. At the end, it won’t be enough. We will resist first, we’ll make it costly for them, but at the end…We need a way to destroy the chip still in the skulls of your brothers. The medics extracted some chips malfunctioning on the brothers who joined us at your call, and they designed a prototype, a sonic weapon. But we need a functioning chip to be sure. ”

Rex wanted to throw up. He let her arm go, took a few steps away from her. What had he been thinking, talking about that damn chip? All natural born were the same, even the ones speaking of friendship and equality of rights.

“Are you saying…. No. No, as much as I want the Empire down. I can’t help you design a weapon to kill all my brothers.”

He trembled, furious. He wanted to strike her. He thought of his brothers, enslaved and brainwashed, eyes empty, and Satine had probably never been in such danger, because he could have throttled her.

His anger probably was open on his face, still, she marched to him and put a hand on his cheek, despite his instinctive movement away.

“I want to save them,” she whispered fervently, “Yes, there is a risk, there is always a risk in medical experimentation, but I want a weapon that will make them free, not a weapon that will make their heads explode. I want to see the chips die in their heads and your brother picking up their weapons and turning on the Empire. We can’t rescue them and de-chip them one at a time. There are too many of them. I want to make them free, legion by legion, hundred by hundred…I want to rescue every single one of the victims of the Sith. Help me, Rex. For all those we can’t help anymore. I want to see Palpatine burn, the stars forgive me, burn, him and his shadow enforcer with that red saber. I want to see Palpatine down and spit on his corpse and then, Obi-Wan and Cody’s souls will have peace.”

She was beautiful like that, the fire of her soul in the open, calling for the blood of those who had destroyed the world and their lost ones. Rex felt the world titling on his axis. Adrenaline was still burning in his blood and he reacted before thinking and took her mouth in a brutal kiss, that wonderful, extraordinary woman.

It was like a spark falling on gasoline.

One instant, they were standing in a hall of the palace, the other Satine had opened the closest door, locked them in a small room, still kissing.

They had endured high level of stress those last days, those last months, something had to give and they came together violently.

Satine couldn’t touch him, too much armour in the way, but she kissed him hard, with an edge of desperation, opened his codpiece herself. He rucked up her skirt until he could touch skin, then swore remembering his gauntlets and took them down, almost trembling. He was hard, as he hadn’t been for months, too stressed, too exhausted, and now his dick was curving towards his belly and so hard it almost hurt.

There were pearls of sweat in the hollow of her throat and he swiped his tongue to taste them, then bit down once, probably harder than was protocol with a lover still so unknown.

Satine ran her nails on his neck in answer and they bit each other in another hungry kiss. He was tearing her underwear off her before really thinking and she hoped on a table.

They fucked like that, Satine still dressed to the last button of her dress, Rex with only his codpiece opened, and he saw her grimace when he entered her. He stopped, suddenly remembering he had saw Obi-Wan use his mouth first on her their only time together, and cursing his inexperience. That night, more than one year ago, had been his only experience with a human woman, and he wasn’t sure two nights with a Rhodian female once qualified.

“Don’t stop!” She protested, urging her from her legs around him.

In her eyes, darker than usual, he saw the same despair of something, of a moment without weigh on their shoulders. He kissed her again, deep and hard. That, he knew how to do. He kissed her again and again as he started to move and he fucked her on that table, Satine nails hard on his neck, her voice encouraging. It was less about pleasure and more about need. He came too fast, muffling his groans against her lips and observed with keen eyes when she made herself come with her fingers, swearing silently to himself to remember the way she did it.

It startled him to realize he hoped for another time. He remembered Cody had used his mouth on her, too, when Rex had been busy with Obi-Wan. He wanted to try that, another day, if he lived to ask.

Ten hours after, he left Mandalore with nine brothers, all volunteers. Ahsoka had wanted to come with them, but he had refused.

“If we have to kill some vode to kidnap another, we want to do it ourselves.” The former Commander had protested and he had hugged her hard, until she had relented and hugged back, as hard.

“Take care of the vode here and the Jedi, ok? They need someone helping them connect again. We’re gonna need to be united.”

“They know it’s not your fault,” Ahsoka answered him. “You know the Jedi know. It’s just…”

“It’s difficult and perfectly understandable. But they still need to be battle ready. War is coming for us. We’ll deal with trauma later, if there is a later.”

He hugged her a second time.

“And take care of the Duchess, too,” he added, not watching her face as he entered the shuttle.

If he had looked at Ahoska, he wasn’t sure he would have the strength to leave. For how much he liked them, he didn’t really know any of the brothers that had joined them. He didn’t even really know Satine. He only had Ahoska and she only had him. He hoped she could herself connect with the other surviving Jedi, if he didn’t came back.

For the end of their lives, the ten brothers of the strike team would refuse to speak about this mission, ever. No debriefing, no questions, no tender asking would ever make them tell the tale of that particular part of their lives.

Whatever had happened, it ended like that: a fortnight after leaving, they came back, all alive if a little burned in some case. Rex dropped off three sedated brothers from the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps into the waiting arms of Satine’s medics.

The Duchess had come to the medical compound at the news of their arrival. She saw his face and wisely didn’t ask questions, only took him back to her apartment. This time, they got as far as finding some softer surfaces before her underwear lost its fight against Rex’s fingers. He knelt on the carpet and did his best with his mouth, but was sure that one or twice, that had been too much for her, his fingers and mouth too insistent. He took her against the arm rest of a sofa, still half in armour, Satine cursing in a language he had never heard of her, asking for more.

After, he cried, without a word, the horrors of this particular mission pouring in his tears, and Satine never asked, just stayed there, with him, and for that, in that second, he adored her, for her compassion, her strength, for more than the memories of a late night during the war.

For Satine, not for the memories of Cody and Obi-Wan who tied them together.

She didn’t let him go to the barracks that night and he slept in her bed, a bed even bigger that the one she had on the Coronet, round and with a high head of wood forming the Kryze sigil. He didn’t even know bed so comfortable existed.

The sleep was good, deep, the morning not so much, when he saw the bruises on her hips, her thighs, and realized he had done that, fucked her with his armour still on and bruised her.

“This is nothing,” she insisted after his babbling, horrified excuses. On her fair skin, the bruises seemed as black as the empty void between the stars. The inner thighs were particularly marked and he remembered how hard he had taken her, searching in her body some absolution.

“No, no, Duchesse, Satine, this isn’t… I hurt you!”

“I remember asking for more, for harder, didn’t I?”

He rolled over on the bed, got out of it, still naked, searching for his clothes.

“I won’t be the way you use to punish yourself,” he spat, but her hand hold him back.

“I have some bacta cream in the bathroom,” she said and he recognized it as some sort of peace offering.

He hesitated for a second, searching her gaze, then abandoned his black on the floor. He followed her into the bathroom, examining the bath, more a pool than anything, the walls of precious mosaic. She saw his expression.

“Too pompous?”

“Perhaps a little strange, after the barracks.”

He put the cream on her himself. Every bruise he covered in cream and then bandaged, to stop the cream from soiling her clothes, was an apology.

“Would you still want me in your bed, if I don’t keep my armour?” He asked after, because they had never talked, just fucked violently, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted pleasure, some sort of memories of Obi-Wan by proxy, or simply human contacts. He didn’t even know what he wanted, apart from a moment of reprise.

She touched his cheek and, feeling bold, he kissed her palm. She didn’t answer his question directly, instead she asked another question:

“I have a dinner with some Separatist Senators tonight. There are some parts of the Separtist Space that the Empire haven’t seized yet, they could be good allies. I would be happy if you came with me.”

“Am I some sort of message for them?” He hated politics. Cody had been so much better at it. Once again, the intensity of the loss closed his throat.

On tiptoe, she kissed him and he answered. It was slow, hesitant, and very different from the other kisses they had shared the two times they had come together. They were still totally naked, save for her bandages, and he grew hard, and broke the kiss because he really wasn’t in the mood for the demands of his libido.

“Can’t it be both? I don’t have the luxuries of making decisions only for myself. Everything I do engage Mandalore too. Can’t I want you by my side because I appreciate your company, and also because having the representative of the clones at my side will help?”

He had a small laugh and he asked another question, instead of answering:

“I made the medics swore they wouldn’t test the sonic weapon on my brothers without me. Will you come with me?” And it was perhaps cruel of him to ask it, because she would possibly assist to the death of the three vode, but he wanted, he needed someone to bear that weight with him, and Ahsoka had enough problems trying to find a place in the small Jedi settlement, after leaving the Order.

Satine nodded.

“Then I will come to your Separatist party with you.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rex didn’t know Master Knol Ven'nari. He had never heard of her when the Bothan had arrived on Mandalore, coming in answer to the Duchess’s message on the Holonet. In fact, he had never meet any Bothan before. The races were numerous in the Republic, but less in the GAR, and the few Bothans had worked in counterintelligence service, a part of the army Rex preferred to have as less contact as possible: they were even worse than the politicians.

Ahsoka had come to Rex, when the small Jedi contingent had elected Master Knol Ven'nari as their leader and briefed him, something he appreciated, even if the Jedi would probably have think less nicely about it  with the tension between their two groups.

“She’s quite a legend,” Ahsoka had said, “She came rarely to the Temple, never took a Padawan, but every Initiate knew of her work in the Outer Rims. She’s _the_ Fire Eater, you know.”

“Tell me it doesn’t mean what I think it mean,” Rex had grumbled, “It’s already complicated enough to keep up with Jedi who don’t play with fire!”

Ahsoka’s face had become chagrined.

“I’m not sure she want to work with the vode, you know. She is one of the survivors because she wasn’t with the troops when Order 66 was enacted.”

Rex had nodded, grim. He was sure the surviving Jedi and the few free vode needed to work together, in coordination with Mandalorians, but he couldn’t exactly force the Jedi’s hands. He could even understand their reluctance. Rex’s vode had still a chance to be rescued. For the Jedi…. Perhaps they could still rescue a few others, but at the end….

At the end, the Jedi had been the victims of the genocide and even with brainwashing, it was difficult for the Force Users to see the vode, the same face who had shoot their brethren in the back.

Master Ven'nari and Rex had ignored each other pointedly until the day after he had come back from kidnapping vode for the study of the chips. When he left Satine’s wing of the palace that morning, he had a message in his comm’, inviting him for breakfast, in a small cantina near the Jedi’s barracks.

A neutral ground, smart.

He send a message to the clones’s barracks, because he had imposed a rule that every clone on Mandalore should check up every fourteen hours and he respected the rules he issued for his men.

Master Ven'nari was already there. A second of hesitation. Was he supposed to salute or would it be worse? He was in armour, he couldn’t exactly hope she would miraculously forget who he was. On a side node, he really needed to find clothes that weren’t armour, uniform, or his blacks.

When she turned to him, he bowed, as a Jedi did to another and he saw a nuance of surprise in her eyes. She bowed to him in return and there was a strange moment where they pretended to be busy with the selection of pastries but were in fact studying each other. He had seen her on Satine’s Council, even if always on the other side of the room. She was shorter than him, with a nice chestnut fur and a deep, throaty voice and this close, he was surprised by her scent, animal and musky.

They seated down, her with some sort of infusion and amethyst eggs, whatever that was, and Rex with caff and the only thing he recognized in the food list: spicy sausages.

He hoped he wouldn’t make a fool of himself and the Duchesse at that Separatist party. They probably wouldn’t serve spicy sausages.

On the other side of the small table, the Jedi Master was observing him with piercing brown eyes. Strangely, it made him think of Obi-Wan. Jedi mannerisms transcended species.

It was the Jedi who fired the first volley.

“Captain Rex. Young Ahsoka has told all of us numerous things about you.”

“Did she, Master Ven'nari? Don’t forget that she’s very young. It would be unfair of the Jedi to reproach her our friendship, when it had only become so strong because she was exiled from your Order.”

She smirked, like she could appreciate the hit.

“Nevertheless,” the Bothan started again, “Ahsoka has now found back her people.”

“And no one is more happy for her than myself,” Rex affirmed, even if a possessive part of him protested that the Jedi had let her go and were not worthy to have her back.

“Are you? Or do you fear we will hurt her again?”

The question surprised him. He observed the Jedi Master who endured the close inspection with grace.

“Commander Tano is a good being,” he said finally, “and not only because she always fought valiantly at our side. She’s a good person, compassionate, smart, and caring. I deeply respect her. I killed brothers for her and will do it again if circumstances don’t give me a choice. If you ask me to walk away from her, I will respectfully tell you to fuck off, Master Jedi. Not because I think she can’t be happy with Jedi, but because I wouldn’t trust with…I wouldn’t trust with one of my vode a person trying to separate her from people who love her and want to protect her.”

He hadn’t planned to tell all of that. He had probably shattered every possibilities of Jedi and vode working together. He was so, so bad at it, Cody, Cody should have been there, he would have known…

A chuckle interrupted his self-recriminations. The chuckle slowly became a booming laugh and Master Knol Ven'nari soon was laughing so hard she hold on to the table, to Rex’s infinite surprise.

When she was calmer, she gave him a smile, and oh Stars, the Bothans had really, really sharp teeth.

“Captain, I think we’ll be fine. I ask that clones continue to respect the Jedi barracks as a no go-zone, and we’ll give you the same curtesy. Nevertheless, the Mandalorian troops have offered us the possibility to train with them, to prepare for the invasion who will come. And we’ll be happy if the …you say the vode, right, if the vode came too.”

“Gener-, eh, Sir, we’ll come.”

“Good. And now, you should try my eggs.”

“Sir?”

“Please, just call me Master, or Ven’nari. Kerch Kushi will be in your little Separatist Party. In fact, he’s the leader and his voice is deeply respected. It is really important you impress him. His specie only eat this particular food. Bloody inefficient, if you ask me; a shortage would kill of them, what was evolution thinking? They have a saying that other sentients eating amethyst eggs are people who can be trusted.”

“How do you know about the party?”

“Even if the Jedi Order demonstrated a terrible blindness those last years in mistaking the Sith for a simple power hungry politician, intelligence gathering had always been one of my specie forte and was, sometimes, one of the things I did for the Order. You’re quite the gossip right now. People know you’re invited by the Duchess herself. And that you left her apartment in the morning.”

Rex eyed her plate. He understood it was a peace banner she offered him, in helping him prepare for the Separatist meeting.

And it was terribly important, too: big chunks of Separatist space were still independent from the Empire: if they joined Mandalore and the Council of Neutral systems, their chances against the Empire would be better.

The eggs still looked horrible. Purple and…moving. Food shouldn’t be moving, in Rex’s opinion.

“Is there a polite way to eat that stuff?” He asked. He wouldn’t be defeated by food. Peace was worth the food poisoning.

She gave him her cutlery and coached him until he ate the repulsive thing in a way that would impress the Separatist leader. He was grateful, but still thought she could have refrained from stealing his spicy sausages.

After, a fragile truce between the Jedi leader and himself in place, he went to visit his poor vode in the lab. The three of them were still only repeating their numbers like a mantra and refused to give their names. Rex wasn’t sure if that was because they thought they were prisoners of war, or because they didn’t remember they had once chosen names for themselves.

They were calm, if they didn’t see Jedi or free vode. Then, they went berserks, yelling traitors and trying to escape the cells to harm them.

“Sir, you should leave,” one of the scientists finally insisted, “You’re only making them furious and we prefer to not sedate them.”

“Remember that-”

“We won’t test the weapon without you. We’ll message you, but it isn’t ready right now. The Duchess insisted we do another round of simulations before we test it on the subjects.”

“You should say, _on humans_ ,” Rex growled and the other man, a head taller than Rex, took a step back.

The Captain wasn’t in the mood to feel guilty about that.

He spend his day in the clone barracks, reading everything he could about the Separatists he would meet soon. Preparation. Preparation couldn’t give him a head for politics, but it could help, certainly. Also, when he was working, his mind busy, he didn’t think too much about the three prisoners vode calling him traitor, about Obi-Wan’s body probably still in that natural pool on the bottom of that cliff, about Cody’s death, about General Skywalker’s fate he still ignored, about his own men under Vader’s command, or the probable failure of their resistance effort.

After, he cleaned his blaster and his armour, even if he couldn’t go with them to the dinner. He examined his helmet, the Jaig eyes, then went to find his brothers.

“Does one of you has paint?”

When he left for the party, his armour was drying. He had kept the blue marks. It was what had formed him and he didn’t pretend it wasn’t him, but he had highlighted every blue part in gold, for revenge.

He thought he would find the Separatist senators making small talks with the Councillors of Satine, with everybody seeming talking about some simple stuff and in fact having three other meanings in the sentence that he would be the only one not understanding.

Instead, he found them in half circle around a hover chair. Standing next to the chair, Satine’s face was red, frowning, her mouth unhappy. She seemed ready to bite and he was sure she had been yelling at people when he had entered the room. Next to her, her sister had the same expression.

As one, the fifty person in the romm turned into his direction when he entered.

“Eehrr… Is this a bad time?” Rex asked, feeling like a small animal in a speeder’s headlights.

“Captain,” Satine said, reaching out with her hand, advancing a few steps in his direction and he came to her naturally, as if he had been taking his orders from her for a long time. He kissed her hand, as he had seen people do and to his surprise, she put her other hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort and familiarity she only had with Korkie and Bo-Katan in public.

“Captain, Voe Atell, of the Separatist Senate, brought here tonight what she called a gift for you, in a demonstration of peaceful intentions. We were having…”

Satine searched for words, something Rex had never seen her do before.

“We were having a discussion about the simple fact that she was in position to make you this gesture and the ethics of her choices.”

In the Duchess’ voice, there was steel, hard, unforgiving and furious. That was a woman who would go to war, a Mandalorian in everything, wearing silk or not. Rex had never found her more attractive but he was beginning to feel suspicious.

Next to the hover chair a green-skinned, horned woman was cringing and Bo-Katan came just behind her, as if she wanted to be sure the other wouldn’t run.

“Come, Captain,” Satine encouraged and she led him by his hand to the hover chair.

“He was a prisoner of Wat Tambor, who disappeared in the Fall of the Republic, and he was then – ”

Satine was still speaking but Rex didn’t understand a word anymore, the sound of blood rushing to his ears covering everything.

Emaciated, bald, covered in cybernetic implants, his eyes haunted, a vod was in the chair. He had a pale smile when he saw Rex’s expression.

“CT-1409 reporting for duty, Captain” he said, his voice a pale drizzle.

“Echo,” Rex whispered and in the silence of the room, it sounded almost like a sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knol Ven'nari is a Jedi coming from Blast Radius, the fifty-third issue in the Star Wars: Republic series of comics.   
> They created very interesting Jedi for that issue and then killed them and never used them again, which is ridiculous if you ask me.


	3. Chapter 3

The Empire attacked. It was only a question of when, after all, not of if. Grim faced around the holoprojector, the Duchess’s Council watched the first image of Taris under attack. The first reports arrived only one hour ago and it wasn’t looking good.

“It’s only the beginning. They will pick one by one every member of the Neutral Systems and then end their quest with us,” Satine said, her mouth a rigid line. She was wearing grey that day, from her shoes to the strange thing on her head that was either an avant-gardist tiara or a hand grenade and the only spot of colour was the red paint of her lips. To Rex’s eyes, it looked like blood.

“It’s a good way to break our alliance,” one of the advisers, whose name Rex had already forgotten, answered, “We don’t have enough troops to protect at the same time Mandalore and the 1,500 star systems of the Neutral Systems.”

“We still have to try,” Master Ven’nari intervened, “the former Separatist will never join an Alliance which doesn’t defend his members. The Jedi are ready, your Higness.”

Satine had a pale smile.

“We thank you for that, Master Jedi, but my sister will only lead Mandalorians troops in this for now.”

As everybody began to protest, she raised a hand.

“The courage of the Jedi and the vode isn’t in question. But we still don’t have a functional weapon against the chip. Exposing Jedi to chipped soldiers of the former GAR would be particularly dangerous for the Jedi, who would have to kill to survive, instead of the prisoners than the Mandalorians could perhaps make. And for your men, Captain Rex, it would be cruel to send them to affront their brothers right now, when perhaps in a few days, we’ll have a way to free their minds.”

It was very strange for Rex to stand on a balcony and see others march into battle. As he stand with the rest of the Duchesse’s Council and watched the first Mandalorian troops embark, he felt like reality was distorting itself even more. Then, to add to the strangeness of the day, he was cornered by Ursa Wren, the new Minister of Finance. She was a short woman with black hair and skin the colour of freshly polished brass and she wore armour, like every Mandalorian in the Council apart Satine.

“Sir?” He asked, because the day was strange enough without ex-Death Watch people leading him into dark corners. He understood Satine’s decisions to bring all Mandalore together in those dark times but groups who had tried to murder the Duchess before made him want to reach for his blaster.

“I’m new in this posting, as you knew, Captain.”

“…Congratulations?” Rex offered because he didn’t know what else to say. What did he knew about Finance, frankly?

“And your brothers and you will be one of my first projects. Perhaps not the most urgent tactically speaking, but it should have been done the moment you arrived to ally yourself with Mandalore,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Sir?” Rex was beginning to feel himself ill at ease.

“I understand you’re a busy man, but I suppose you have a second.”

“Not exactly, Sir, we haven’t reformed a new command structure yet.”

“You should do it, then, and send me someone who can speak for all of you.”

“Sir with all respect, but for what exactly?”

“To negotiate your pay.”

“Our – what?”

“There will be back interest, of course, for the money you should have received from the moment you came to Mandalore.”

“But, I…Sir. M’dam. The vode aren’t in the habit-“

“Of getting paid?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“We aren’t the Republic, Captain. You’ll led your brothers to fight for Mandalore against the Empire?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“Then you’ll be paid, as every soldier should. Send me you second, Captain, my services are already working on opening all of you bank accounts.”

And she left him there, perhaps without realizing the shock she had given to his system.

Rex sat down on a nearby bench. From there, he could see the ships readying for depart, without him and his brothers because it had been deem cruel to pitch them against their chipped brothers when they had another solution for now. And now they were getting paid.

After a time, he stood up and went in search of Ahsoka. He needed a friend in that moment.

His comm’ biped a location in answer of his question and he went to the medical wing.

Ahsoka was sitting on Echo’s bedside. The clone had refused the bacta tank he needed, because it felt too much like getting stashed again like a tool in a drawer, so the medics were doing it the old ways. Longer, but more easy to handle for Echo. He was snoring like a motor and Ahsoka working on a datapad when Rex entered the room.

He sat next to her and they stayed a moment in silence, comfortable with each other, observing the sleeping man. After a time, she hold out to him her datapad.

“Still no news about Skyguy,” she said and Rex put his arm around her shoulders, quickly scrolling the list of newly confirmed Jedi’s deaths. Most of them he didn’t recognize, but as always, it was long. Most of them listed a death in the first hours of Order 66 but some of them were more recent. Some Jedi were still alive, lost in the galaxy, and he hoped a few of them found their ways to Mandalore. Every hour, Mandalore still broadcasted, in every way possible, its message to offer a safe place for Jedi, or for everyone else fleeing the Empire.

“Skywalker’s too stubborn to die like that. You’ll see, one day a ship leaking fuel and flying with too much missing parts to be capable of it in theory will arrive on Mandalore, and he’ll be in it, to join our merry band of rebels,” Rex affirmed. He couldn’t believe General Skywalker was dead, he couldn’t. Not when they had already lost so much people. The spies of Mandalore had reported than Vader, that mysterious Sith helmeted in black and murder, had the mission to track and kill the surviving Jedi but Rex knew his General. Anakin Skywalker wouldn’t let a Sith defeat him. His Jedi General was probably busy rescuing other Jedi all across the Empire and would soon lead them on Mandalore. If only he contacted them, Rex and Ahsoka could go help him.

They stayed together a long moment, exchanging the latest news. When Ahsoka found so natural that the clones were paid, he realized how deep the usual dehumanizing the clones had suffered on the hands of the Kaminoan and then most of the Republic had ran. Yes, they were getting paid. It was normal. They always should have been payed.

After, he went back to the clones’ barrack. He was the highest ranking officer free of his chip and had naturally assumed command but if they were starting anew, was it right for him to give orders like that? There wasn’t a room big enough in the barracks for the three hundred and twenty nine clones on Mandalore right now, so they gathered outside on a shuttle platform.

Rex had searched on his datapad for voting procedures and he felt giddy. Whatever would happen after, they would have that. Their leader elected. Their choices. He insisted in his speech that no clone was forced to stay in the fight. They weren’t slaves anymore.

“Yeah, but if Mandalore lose against the Empire, we’ll be decommissioned as malfunctioning. I’m fighting. Vive the Duchess! Death to the Emperor” One of his brothers remarked and soon, they were all yelling “Vive the Duchess!!”

Rex was elected as their Captain and Sinker, a former Sergeant of the 104th, was elected as his second. After another long discussion all clones put the Kryze’s sigil on their armour, most of them on their shoulders. Some were only wearing that spot on colours on white amour, other had kept also their former colours, some, like Rex, had kept their former colours and added new as a message. But it felt important to add the Kryze’s sigil.

Vive the Duchess.

The planetary leader they choose to follow, instead of the one enslaving their brothers.

Vive the Duchess.

Rex decided he would show it to her. Satine wasn’t exactly the armour biggest fan but he was sure she would happy to hear about their elections, even if it was probably an amateur one. They hadn’t been alone since that last morning after their night together and he felt perhaps a little daring when he entered the private wing but he wanted to share that joy.

On the third hallway, he found an old trap door opened on the floor and wet traces leaving the service tunnel under the palace. Rex followed the wet traces on the floor. Whatever it was, it shouldn’t be there. And if someone had penetrated that part of the palace, it could only mean one thing.

He started to run, as if a murderous Grievious was behind him. At the same time, he activated his comm.

“Attack on the Duchess. I repeat, attack on the Duchess.”

He found two bodies on the threshold of the apartment, wearing Mandalorian armour in Kryze colours. Satine’s bodyguards. He didn’t even stop to check if they were alive, barrelled into her private rooms. He almost tripped over a body, big reptilian being, covered in blood, probably hurt by the bodyguards, and rushed to the bedroom, from where he could hear the sound of a fight. Satine had succeed in disarming her opponent, a thin human or near human in Mandalorian armour, and the attacker had improvised in putting his hands around her neck.

Rex didn’t dare shoot him so close to Satine and he simply charged into the fray.

Rex’s shoulder caught the attacker under the arm and the Captain threw him over his shoulder. The other was fast, trained, and understood Rex would shoot him at the first occasion, so he stayed too close for that. They fought violently, trashing the room. The unknown assailant was good and Rex recognized some of his movements, but the build was too thin for a brother, and he was too small. Rex finally succeed in pining him under him, using his superior build, and he took his helmet down.

“Let me see your fa-“

A surprised yelp escaped him when the face was free. It was his own. Or well, it had been, a few years ago.

“A cadet!” He swore.

“My name is Boba Fett,” the young man yelled, apparently outraged to be mistaken for a common clone.

In his surprise, Rex had loosened up his grip and the younger man used it. He freed himself, stabbed Rex in the joint of the armour on the hip, and started his jetpack, breaking the window and escaping. Swearing, Rex put his hand on the knife protruding between two parts of the armour, when a bip alerted him.

Boba Fett had left a bomb as parting gift.

Satine was already up, her clothes in disarray, blood on her temple. She was the one who guided him. He was still too shocked by Boba’s presence to make the good choice: he would have tried the window and it was way too high.

The moment they were piled up in the bath tub, the bomb exploded. The blast still was a shock but the bath tub was strong enough. It cracked but succeed in protecting them. When Rex lifted his head, the apartments were a ruin and a fire was starting in the bedroom but they were, more or less, intact.

He turned to the woman who had just saved his life, just after he saved her. She was breathing really fast and she was really close, her grip strong on Rex’s hand.

Another inch and Rex kissed her. No like he had done the other times. Not in passion that famous night with Satine, Cody and Obi-Wan. Not in the crazy lust and violence he had shared with her since the fall of the Republic. It was hesitant, a search of comfort. Their mouths slipped against each other, came back, tried again. Satine made a noise than Rex couldn’t have identified for all the blasters in the world against his head. She pushed herself up, threw a leg over his for a better angle. A second of hesitation, then she took his lower lip between hers and tipped his head up with a hand under his chin. He opened his mouth and felt a shock when their tongues touched and just at that instant, a whole squad of Mandalorian armed to the teeth flew into the ruined rooms.  

Later, after Rex was bandaged and Korkie had hugged him just after hugging his aunt, to Rex’s intense surprise, the Duchess was installed in Bo-Katan’s rooms, since the other Kryze’s sister was away leading troops against the Empire.

Rex had difficulties leaving. What if another bounty hunter succeeded? The Empire offered a small fortune for either of the Kryze’s sisters, the faces of the Council of Neutral Systems politics and army. The Captain had chewed out the head of the palace security team, even if it wasn’t his place to do it. The words “better response time when I was two years old” had been yelled.

He was sitting on a couch and composing in his head a message to Sinker to bring two brothers as new bodyguards for the Duchess when the door of the bathroom opened. Satine’s face was bear of make-up, she was only wearing a dressing gown. Bare of any regalia, she had never seemed more human, accessible, but the way she stood still commanded respect, even with the spot of bacta on the side of her head.

“Your Highness”, Rex stood up.

“I really think you should call me Satine when we are alone. Not only you shared my bed, you saved my life,” she gently chided.

“Satine,” he corrected. He lifted a hand in an impulsive moment and before he could stop himself, he touched the side of her head, gently turning it to inspect the bacta bandage.

She pushed her head into his hand and he cupped her neck, marvelling at the golden hair, so soft and silken. Kissing her seemed natural after that. Her lips were soft, fresh. It was slow, very chaste for a long time. She curled her arms around him, bringing him closer. She smelled like soap and she was warm, and alive, alive in a world where almost everybody he knew was dead or missing. In that moment, he didn’t care that their liaison was probably ill-advised and perhaps a way to cling to their dead, in memory of Obi-Wan, Cody and that night more than a year ago.

In that moment, only Satine counted.

They never went to Bo-Katan’s bedroom, because that would have felt like a violation. But, even more practical than her sister, Bo-Katan was royalty, and her couch would have been enough for a squad of clones to sleep comfortably, big enough for the two of them.

They needed that, after that close escape. Something soft like the skin of Satine’s legs, which Rex explored. The two last times had been hard and fast, still dressed for her, still in armour for him. Now, he discovered those legs that seemed without end, miles and miles of pale skin that he kissed and explored, as gentle as he ever had been. And the breasts! How sensitive they were. They were fascinating and Satine made the most delicious noises when he played with them. She was patient, letting him discover, caressing his shoulders, his back. Around them, the palace slept and they could have believed they were the only ones awake on Mandalore. Then finally, he found the wet secret of her sex between her legs. Here too he took his time. The female human body was still an ongoing mystery for him. Three times with Satine, especially with how this three times had gone, a pleasant orgy the first time and violent sex the other two, three times like that didn’t teach a lot of things. The last time, he had taken better attentions to her body, but he was still an apprentice, and ready to learn more.

Curious, he rubbed her wet folds, cataloguing her reactions, a choked moan.

“Am I being a tease?” He asked, rubbing her thighs from his other hand and parting her folds with his fingers.

“A little, but I don’t care,” she whispered.

His fingers explored. The lips of her sex, that little nub that made her mewl every time, the opening of her vagina. Curious, he leaned down and licked. The taste was strange, new, but not strange enough to stop him and he licked that little nub. Satine was panting, her hands crisped on his shoulders.

“I don’t know if I will be good enough to make you come like that,” Rex confessed.

“That’s ok,” Satine said, “take your time. Practice make it perfect.”

“Are all human women bare here? It seems strange since male have some pilosity.”

“No, we have too. And I have, most of the time. I just needed to try something new.”

Rex leaned down again and this time he tried to push a finger into her. He caressed, he licked, he let her nails mark his skin. She never directed him, let him explore her body to his heart content until finally, he found a combination of acts that pushed her into orgasm. He wouldn’t have been prouder if he had defeated the Empire all by himself.

She needed a moment to calm, then she pushed him firmly until he was seated against the back of the couch and crawled on his lap. The sensation of his cock filling her up, so wet, so tight, so warm, had Rex bitting his lips to stop himself from coming too soon. She rode him leisurely, slowly, easily, with so many kisses and caress.

He pressed kisses on every part of her skin he could and he vowed, once again, to kill every menace to that woman.


	4. Chapter 4

They tested the sonic weapon on a misty morning. Ashoka had offered to come as moral support but Rex had politely declined. If it had been him, eyes empty and a puppet, he would have wanted the less people possible seeing him like that. He even tried to stop Satine from coming, despite the promise he had extracted of her before to witness the experiment on the three clones prisoners.

Trying to make a Mandalorian change their mind…. Meteors had been known to be more ready to change their course!

Just Satine, Echo and Rex himself, and the scientists themselves, of course, and it was already too many people seeing his brothers like that, foaming at the mouth and trying to break their manacles to brain Rex, yelling that word, _Traitor_ , again and again.

The weapon wasn’t really much what Rex had expected, meaning it wasn’t exactly portable.

“How do you want us to take that thing in battle?” He had asked the chief scientist, when they had been presented with some machinery the size of the room. The transmitter itself was almost as tall as Rex.

“It wasn’t exactly easy, Captain,” the other had frowned, “The Kaminoans had years to perfect their chips and the brain is a fragile organ. If we had more time-”

“But you don’t,” Satine had stopped him, “If you take the time normally needed by such a project, the Emperor will have conquered all the known universe three time before you have a prototype.”

Rex had taken her words like a kick to the ribs.

“You’re really not sure it will work,” he said the scientist, and it wasn’t a question.

The other had passed a hand on his bare skull. He seemed ten years older than when Rex had meet him the first time, only two months before.

“We did more than our best,” the man responded to Rex, “Don’t think we didn’t work so hard because they’re clones than we would have for, eh natural born I suppose would be the word. This thing, the chip, is a horror which should have never left the pages of a horror novel. All the neuro-scientists of Mandalore have worked on nothing else for the last two months, around the clock.”

“Do it. No need to prolong it. Just test it.” Rex said, and he observed how the man looked at Satine, searching for confirmation.

“The Captain’s words are the only one you should listen, when it comes to his brothers,” and the scientist nodded and scrambled behind a consol.

It wasn’t an impressive show light, like Rex had somehow expected. He didn’t even hear anything. He saw some lights on the side of the machinery, but it was simply an indicator.

The first brother went down hard, convulsing like he had touched a live wire.

“Stop, _stop_!!!” Rex yelled, struggling with the lock of the cell, trying to reach his brother. He didn’t even know his name, he hadn’t meet the other before Order 66, and the only thing the other man had given them since he was prisoner was his matricule, but in that second, that man was every lost brother, he was Cody, he was Fives, he was Hardcase, he was every brother still in the Empire’s clutch, he was every brother who had died under the Republic’s banner, he was even every cadet of Kamino who Rex would probably never see, never rescue.

“Don’t enter when it’s-”Someone shrieked, but it was too late, Rex was in the cell, reaching for the other, and then he knew no more.

He came back in the infirmary, a Star Destroyer firing all batteries behind his eyes, and Ashoka sleeping in a chair next to his bed.

“What?” He croaked and she jumped on her feet, her sleep light.

“How are you feeling?”, She said, leaning down on him.

“What the kriff happened?” He tried to sit down but his body refused even that simple order.

“You went into the weapon’ emission.” Ahsoka said, her montral white almost grey with retrospective terror, and for a second, Rex didn’t understand.

Weapon? What weapon? Then it all came rushing back. The chips, the experiment.

“The vod?” And he saw the answer on his friend’s face. She took his hand and Rex let that small part of comfort, even if he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“They thought we would lose you too. What were you thinking…”

“I was thinking my brother needed help.”

“All your brothers need help. That’s why they’re trying to do in the labs!”

“Well, it isn’t very effective!”

“It’s still the only idea we have!”

Rex closed his eyes.

“Couldn’t you…I can’t open my eyes without wanting to hurl.”

Her hand touched the side of his head and he let out a careful breath as pain receded. He hadn’t realized how much of pain he was until it stopped.

“Eh,” he said, “and with the Force-“

“Don’t you think we thought about it? Every Jedi on Mandalore went to meditate in the labs.”

“Oh, I-“

“No, we didn’t tell you. It’s still complicated to see a vod for most of them. But we had to try.”

“And?”

“You would be the first to know. But we can’t even feel the chips. It’s like there is nothing here.”

Rex stayed silent a long time then he started again:

“They can’t have understood. The Jedi.”

“When they were killed, you mean? No, they can’t have sensed the chip coming online.”

Rex turned to see the window. It was night outside.

“Have I been unconscious more than a day?”

“Just teen hours. They say they will have another protocol to try in three days. And the Duchess, she asked to comm her when you-”

“No. Don’t tell her I’m awake. Not now.”

He patted her hand and closed his eyes, pretending he was trying for sleep; and Ahsoka had the compassion to pretend she didn’t know what he was doing. Somewhere between thinking about that brother whose name he would never know and thinking about Obi-Wan’s last thought, when Cody had gunned him down, Rex’s lies become a truth and sleep took him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hit a bit of a writer block those last weeks/months, so I thought I would give you that chapter, even if it's short, in a effort to bring the spark back!

The second brother used for testing died too, but not as quickly as the first.

There were sixty wonderful seconds of lucidity before he took his last breath, and Rex had the time to learn his name, a last whisper, a last act of defiance against the Empire. “I am Harpoon,” the poor guy choked out, shaking against Rex and Rex felt those words piercing him like a lightsaber in the heart.

The chief scientist himself was crying, not full sobs but almost there. All around the round, the neuroscientists had misty eyes, as they try to pretend they didn’t watch Harpoon die in Rex’s arms.

Rex refused to feel a kinship for the man and his team, no matters how the fate of the entire galaxy, and the fate of all his brothers, hinge on those people works. He couldn’t, even if he was the one who had delivered Harpoon to them like a sacrificial lamb.

“Use the data,” Rex spat to him, “Go to work. That kriffin thing must work…”

“Sir…”

“Go the kriff to work! If you fail ….Go the kriff to work!”

Because if they failed, the world would slowly suffocate under the Emperor’s grip, and the blood of those three brothers on Rex’s hands would have been in vain.

They buried him at dusk, a funeral so different that was usual for a vod. To rest in the earth, that was something for natural born, something for rich people, in Rex and his brothers’ minds, but Satine had offered a spot in the palace necropolis, and poor Harpoon would march away between kings and queens and other Mandalore princes and so other many titles that Rex couldn’t even read some of the tombstones.

“His life was worth as much as any of them,” Ahsoka had said, her smaller hand holding one of his in a show of support and it was an effort not to dig his fingernails in her flesh, between the grief and the anger and the ache of lose. It was a brother’s death, amongst thousands and thousands of brothers’ deaths, but Rex felt like that one was particularly unfair.

Sixty seconds of freedom.

That night, he searched for Satine.

Not for sex, nothing was more far away from his mind that sex, but he wanted…He didn’t know.

Companionship.

A presence.

Someone who had known Cody and who wasn’t the vode, because Rex was leading them and would have felt like a terrible officer if he had made them carry his grief and his doubts, on top of their own, and someone who wasn’t Ahsoka, whose family had been gunned down by Harpoon and his brothers, no matters how unintentionally.

He found her crying and he hesitated. Would it be intrusive to go to her? Whatever had pushed such a strong woman to tears, was Rex the person to help, burdened as he was by his own grief?

At the end, his feet choose for him. He sat down next to her and took her hand and she pushed her face against his shoulder. It wasn’t like women crying in holodramas. It was messy and noisy and her face was red and wet and Rex wished to kill those responsible for those tears. Something that probably would have horrified Satine, but it still would have feel good, in Rex’s opinion, to put their heads; whoever they were, at her feet.

He put one of his arms around her and made some calming noises, or what he imagined were calming noises. He was so out of his comfort zone. The only person he had ever regularly comforted was Cody every time Obi-Wan did something stupid, or when the numbers of lost vod was higher than usual; and alcohol had been their usual motto in those circumstances. He felt under armed for the mission of helping her in her pain, but he would never have left her alone, unless she asked.

“Bail Organa is dead,” she told him later, when she had cried every tear in her body.

“I met him once,” Rex said, “tall guy, Senator, was stubborn as hell?”

“Yes. Yes, that was him. He was my friend. For years. I was a guest to his wedding, I….He was my friend.”

“What happened?” Rex asked slowly. It was a strange discovery that offering his shoulder to her pain made his own easier to bear. The grief which had clouded his brain for weeks hadn’t disappeared; and Harpoon was still in his mind, but trying to help her helped him….

“He tried to come to Mandalore and his ship was blasted down when they tried to pass the blockade between the Core and the Council of Neutral Systems.”

“What…but…” Rex spluttered. He had meet Organa on Christophis, and it was a smart man, not a man who would ran away to such a dangerous path without reason, when he had been safe on Coruscant.

“It doesn’t make sense. Why did he do such a thing?”

The usual calm mask of politics was already covering her face and Rex couldn’t stop himself, took her hand, as he tried to stop that. He wanted Satine as she was when they were alone sometimes, when it was late and she was tired, he hoped for the woman who had cried in his arms. Her hand turned in his, their fingers entangling themselves. 

“He send a message,” she continued, “before leaving Coruscant. To warn me of his arrival. He said….he said he had an important piece of information.”

“What piece?”

“That’s the problem, Rex, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it was something so important, so game changing that Bail wouldn’t let a message carry it. And now, I fear that secret is gone with him.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr under the same username, come and say hi!


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